


i hear you call my name (and it feels like home).

by ftwnhgn



Category: Das Boot (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Character Study, Dom/sub Undertones, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Power Dynamics, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 06:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23847043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftwnhgn/pseuds/ftwnhgn
Summary: Frank never wanted to find himself on a u-boot again — what he wanted was to see his daughter grow up, and to be done with this war. He did not expect for his new captain to become a part of this equation.(Or five times Frank listened to Johannes and the one time he didn’t.)
Relationships: Frank Strasser/Johannes Von Reinhartz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30





	i hear you call my name (and it feels like home).

**Author's Note:**

> me returning to ao3 with a 10k slow burn after binging season 2 of das boot? yeah. i actually wanted to write something for hoffmann and tennstedt for months now, but then frank finally found his partner in crime, even if that didn't work out quite the way they thought. so, here's my residual fix-it fic to deal with the pain that also includes a little bit of a character study for frank. i want to thank leonard and clemens for doing the absolute most with these two, bless their hearts and may they work together again soon.
> 
> das boot may bury all its gays, but i resurrect them one by one. i advice you to read this after watching the new season, my pals. and there is also some creative liberty taken to the pacing of the events in the season to make this fic work. who cares. das boot doesn't make any sense either!
> 
> tw: hints of internalized and time-specific homophobia, von reinhartz' suicide attempt gets mentioned once, discussions about the scene in 2x7 in the torpedo room and its aftermath. also, this deals with a relationship that includes a power imbalance that gets hinted at, just so everyone going into this is aware. 
> 
> title: madonna - like a prayer

_“Does he love you so much?”_  
He would commit murder for me.  
\- Gaston Leroux

i.

Frank wanted to end this year as far away from the sea as possible, and finally reunited with his daughter,and he would have done anything to get there. _Anything_. Where he finds himself instead at the end of December is back on water, back on another damn boat, back in front of another damn radio he was supposed to listen to at any horrid hour of the day. To say that his idea of ‘anything’ turned around on him faster than his legs could carry him is no understatement and he is shamefully aware that Gluck’s plan to send him out to sea was half to reprimand him and half to keep him safe — from going back to the resistance or from himself Frank is not sure. He didn’t have the time to ask, not that he actually would have anyway, but he would have liked the possibility, at least this one possibility for him.

The chair he is sitting on is just as uncomfortable as the last one on the U-612, standard issue for every boat since it’s cheaper, but maybe the wood he is sitting on feels worse to him because this time Frank has much more time to stir in his thoughts and guilt that doesn’t stop plaguing him. Of denying himself another chance to finally see his daughter, to finally get away from this _wretched_ war and all it entails, to finally give himself to the illusion that maybe he could exist in a world where all that is happening — all that his country is doing, that is— is not a part of his life, anyone’s life. Is not part of anything. It is a luxury he can’t afford to daydream about, he knows, not with the blood that is on his hand by proxy, not with the notches digging into every page of his ledger and reminding him of what he did, or rather what he couldn’t do. It’s all futile attempts to try and distract himself from the circles his mind walks around the same thoughts, not even the book he is reading can do much to get them out of his head.

See, this is all going swimmingly for him. He wouldn’t mind if Laudrup would talk _him_ into an early graveinstead of talking off the ears of their ‘guests’. Frank would take that before his own absolution will do that for him. At least then he’d have the entertainment.

His grim determination must show on his face - or maybe he just always looked generally miserable - but when his fingers curl around the edges of his book and his eyes follow his movements more by default than by real interest he gets interrupted by the heavy sound of footsteps and then the stop of them, and Frank can see the profile of his new captain before the man can even speak to him, something already beginning to stir in him that is not guilt by far but — interest for this, maybe, or something a little more careful like curiousity. He keeps it to himself, though, and only answers when spoken to, only looks up from his book when he replies to their state of lacking correspondence and new orders.

It’s the eyes, he thinks, the fiery glint in those cool, cool eyes, lighting up the cold tint of ice blue into something alive, something moving. He has seen such a glint in Wrangel, but that man’s eyes were always on the verge of dilating and swallowing the pupils whole, they always seemed to be seconds away from snapping to you and then only heaven knows what could prepare you from getting the attention of that mad man. Von Reinhartz’ eyes are intense, yes, but they are open, they are always open, and nothing could betray how clear the captain’s emotions are when they wash into them, and nothing could betray how being pinned under the gaze does something else than worry Frank.

This is an old feeling, one he hasn’t felt in years despite his young age, and he can’t quite believe that he is finding traces of it chasing through his blood when he answers that cold blue for a moment, a second only before the captain sits down across from him. This is something he’s always hated about the small alcove that’s the radio room on this ship - how he could not escape from the control room and its residents and how he is always subjected to the captain’s or LI’s attention. It has been one of the worst things back on the 612 first with Tennstedt and Hoffmann’s constant fighting and distrust when he worried that one of them would sink that whole ship simply to prove a point to the other, and then with Wrangel he wanted nothing more than be far, far away from this man. As far away as humanly possible.

Now, it has him pinned in Von Reinhartz’ view and the older man doesn’t seem to have any qualms about starting a conversation with him, opening up about his own experience of reading the book Frank is currently reading and the music Frank is listening too, and Frank is less surprised when the conversation steers towards the topic of America than one — maybe the captain himself — would believe. He’s learned that people usually underestimate him, he’s learned that he likes not to correct them. It usually kept him alive. Greenwood and him had similar conversations and Frank was good about not letting his guard down too far, only as much as friendliness and the watchful eye of their late I-WO would allow.

But he finds that he can’t lie to his new captain, something about his diluted pragmatism that he usually kept to himself bleeding through with every new question posed to disarm him, constantly turning back towards this light eyes when he answers his questions dutifully and _letting_ himself be disarmed. Von Reinhartz speaks quietly and with intent, something entirely new compared to the last men Frank had to listen and answer to, and he can’t help but notice it with, well, with pleased surprise.

When the captain smiles he can’t help but smile back, something in him just automatically responding to the sight with the corners of his mouth turning upwards in return — and _what the hell_ is that about, he hardly ever finds reasons to smile down here. But it happens and then they look at each other for a moment, a long moment, and something in Frank’s blood runs a little warmer then for the first time in a long time. Even when he leaves his seat when his shift is over, he can’t help but look forward to the promised New Year’s Eve party the captain proposed him joining in.

(And how could he say no to that? His captain asked him, offered him to play his records that evening, with that quiet but steady gaze that never wavered from Frank’s face as he waited for his answer. Yeah, how could he not follow that with a nod?)

Because he can play his records, he reminds himself, because it wouldn’t be allowed any other day.

ii.

This place has always been too small for a whole crew of grown men — at least a boat of this size has never been meant to see all of them in one of its sparely fitted and efficiency-prone rooms (if one could even call them rooms) and Frank has always preferred to keep to himself for around twenty reasons he could come up with on the spot, the New Year’s party is just another one to add to that list. There’s too many people, too many sweaty guys pressed together and the SS-men only swarming around in the middle of them like the sickening flies they are, and seeing no one even say something about it sours Franks mood enough to stay at his desk through most of the evening.

He is on shift, of course, probably the only man on this boat who is, but he likes it that way. He can switch the records and flip them onto their other sides from this place too and he doesn’t have to hear any of the other men complain about the music to his face. He knows they do it anyway, they know he doesn’t care.

The countdown comes and he leans against the door to his posting, watches the guys howl and jump on each other and drink once it hits zero, and he looks past all of them to see his captain already looking at him. Von Reinhartz is dressed in his usual uniform with his wool sweater and the heavy brown captain’s jacket on top of it, his hat still on to even mark him as the leader of this litter of rowdy men, and his face is cast in half shadows from the brim of it but Frank can still see him looking right back, can feel the focus of those light eyes burn right into him from across a room and the stretched space of metal between them. It’s, it’s unnerving and it’s everything at the same time, and the particles in Franks blood are moving again, are making a sound he swears he can hear in his ears like a whistle, and he braces himself against the door.

It’s embarrassing, it is maybe the most embarrassing of a ton of embarrassing things he has done himself and seen on a boat of this kind, and he can’t help but reprimand himself right away, to tell himself to stop doing— _what_ , exactly? Stop looking at his captain, stop looking back, stop answering every little bit of attention thrown his way like a vulture hungering for scraps of rotting flesh, stop being so damn desperate for the attention of a stranger he is supposed to trust with his life and follow into death. Well, it’s not his fault that Von Reinhartz makes it so easy for Frank to consider following him. To consider doing stupid things for him, even if no stupid thing has happened yet. But it’s the potential that frightens him, that quiet but constant thrumming that always flares to life when they look at each other, that sits in the well-hidden curve of Von Reinhartz’ smile when Frank can’t shut himself the fuck up and says something he probably shouldn’t say to any of his captains. He’s got the tendency to insubordination when left unattended—the whole world seems to know it and yet he can never keep himself in check when unprompted moments present themselves.

The tell-tale chirping from the radio breaks their weird little moment up and Frank hastily retreats back into his little station, ignoring the burn behind his eyes by sheer force of will and with one hand wiping the wetness from away, and he dutifully — always dutifully — puts his headphones back on and takes his pencil and book and translates the coded message.

Just his luck that it’s one meant for Von Reinhartz, the laments of missing correspondence from Lorient only a few days ago coming back to bite him int he ass. Frank steels himself for a second, one deep breath to keep his blood from climbing temperature in his veins, and he makes his move through the sea of people to find the man to deliver his message.

It’s treating through wolves to find the biggest one of them and let him follow on his way back and the odd thrill running through Frank is not lost on him. He imagines Von Reinhartz’ curious eyes burning into his back and can’t keep the hint of a smile ghosting over his face. Yes, he is the first to be aware that he is lacking situational awareness here. He blames it on the twenty sweaty men clouding the air even more than usually, that’s usually easier than blaming himself, more convenient too for once.

There is something to be said, he thinks, about finding a wolf and taking him back home, or whatever place stands in for home in their case. To let the possibility of being bitten into dangle right in front of him and somehow not walk away from it. A similar sentiment made him join the resistance, he did not expect it to find him again on a boat and in form of a man half a head taller than him, around twenty years his senior.

Von Reinhartz asks him not to reply to Lorient’s message and nothing about his life should surprise Frank anymore. The man stands there, the coldness of his gaze alight with that similar fire Frank has seen in him on their first day on sea, that gaze that Frank would probably walk into waves for, and he realises how true that is when Von Reinhartz tells him about New York — ending the war, finding his daughter again, giving the Americans the ammunition needed to end this fight for good. All of this coming out in the same quiet voice that addressed Frank during their first conversation, every word clear as a bell and determined as he has seen and heard Von Reinhartz demonstrate several times already over the past days, that voice he knows could talk to him for hours and he would still sit there and listen, would probably even do so without being prompted to.

There are mere inches between them when Von Reinhartz leans in _without blinking_ to tell him in passing not to worry about the fact that Gluck mentioned his desertion attempt, says, “I’m supposed to look after you” as if something in Frank doesn’t stop dead in its tracks and rearranges itself around the words like a vine finding new brick to climb upwards on. He can’t help but stare back, let that cool blue swallow him right then and there, and it could be New Year’s Eve or it could be the two of them standing in the middle of the desert or a snow storm, it could be anything, he thinks, it could anything and it wouldn’t matter because all he can do is let himself walk headfirst into blue irises and a promise that sounds like a vow.

He’s pragmatic, he knows he is, but when he sits back down and has his captain stand above him, prompts him to answer, he can’t help but say something he shouldn’t say yet again, practically tells his captain how crazy he is, and despite the burning hot shock of expecting disciplinary actions for that all he gets is a hazy laugh, all he gets is the callback to _I’m supposed to look after you_ and the meaning of _I’m supposed to look after you_ replacing every worry of his own traces of insubordination in that moment. Tennstedt or Wrangel, Hoffmann too probably, would have told him to take it down a notch. What he gets from Von Reinhartz is the feeling that the man seems to be proud of him for not backing down, for speaking his mind.

It’s all hushed sentences, all pressed into the space between them, the only reason he rises his words from whispers is to reach the older man where he still hovers over him by the threshold (like protection, like worry), and even when he has to decrypt another message he can’t see Von Reinhartz leaving his side. Maybe to hear what he’s saying, or maybe for another reason that still hangs in between those six words that echoe in Frank’s mind like a shout. _Like a shout_.

Their I-WO comes up to them and Von Reinhartz doesn’t move an inch as he lies right into his face and Frank watches it all happen, traces every moment of his captain in the way his captain has begun to do with him, and his blood simmers and sings as he watches their I-WO retreat again, leaving the two of them alone.

When Von Reinhartz directs his attention back to him again Frank listens to every one of his words and commits them to memory like a prayer, like coordinates coming through over radio waves — he should resent himself for this, but all he thinks about is how the two of them are something now. A team, maybe, or their own resistance even. That’s exaggerating it and he knows that, but he lets the thought linger, lets it stay right there next to I’m supposed to look after you.

And it’s with the realisation that _I’m supposed to look after you_ probably means _I’ll take care of you_ that Frank starts the new year feeling less alone than he has the year before and hotter to the touch than ever.

iii.

Von Reinhartz’ back is wide and solid, the black leather of his jacket an expanse like an endless map stretching over his shoulders as he stands in front of Frank and helps him sabotage their entire ship and mission. Frank only pays it attention sparingly with his gaze simply because he has to use the little time he’s actually got with sabotaging their radio unit without it being traced back to him later. He knows he’s got his captain’s word on his side and it makes the whole ordeal about five percent less nerve-wrecking, but he works away at it anyway, does as he was told before by the older man. It is a matter of minutes and yet he hates himself during every second of it, hates how much he enjoys it, hates how he knows that if Von Reinhartz would have asked him of anything else he would have probably done so too, followed his orders with the same eagerness.

There is something about the humorous and pleased look in his eyes, the undeniable joy that etches itself into his worn features when he finds Frank following through with what he was saying, or whenever their conversations take on that rapid fire back and forth like it did on New Year’s Eve. Frank can’t deny how much he enjoys it too, how much the heat in his blood extends down his spine and settles into every part of him, ending in a heat rush he could chase for hours after he left the radio room or they parted. They have become a unit, they have become something solid to lean on in the unpredictable climate underwater surrounded by sharks and waves. Frank had decided to run from the wolves, now he found himself running with one of them, running to look for a breach in the walls surrounding them, running to find an opening in the water to make their way through.

America feels less and less like a dream with every passing mile and when Frank’s eyes trace the outline of Von Reinhartz taking in nearly all of the doorway as he shields him from view, something heavy and possessive curls in his stomach at the prospect of something else not being too out of reach for once.

(For a man so prone to realism, he has begun to dream an awful lot again ever since they moved out into the ocean. His dreams are full of ice blue eyes and scarred skin, rough hands holding him down and holding him close, only the quiet murmur of an unrelenting baritone telling him things, telling him how good he is, and the sound of waves so far away that they could be anywhere, anywhere and together, and whenever he wakes up he feels as frustrated as he feels angry with himself.

Then there are the more innocent and yet more damning dreams. The ones that include his daughter, his daughter and a house in the Spanish countryside, and a man with him tall and steady and to lean his head against his broad chest, and arms around him that make him feel safe and that make him feel warm. His daughter giggling at something he’s saying and a mouth leaving traces against his own hair, the same sweet words that could bring him to tears following him into those scenarios. He hates waking up from those nights even more.)

The thing with the sabotaged radio works of course, because he knows what he is doing, and to see Kraushaar finally knocked down a peg for something, even something that is technically Frank’s fault, lets something like guilty satisfaction course through him, only spurned on by seeing Von Reinhartz call him out in front of most of the crew in the conn and defend Frank in the same breath. It burns holes into Frank’s chest, more specifically his heart, in a way something hasn’t done in a long, long while. And it reminds him painfully and vividly of their first real meeting weeks ago when Von Reinhartz got him out of the cocoon he has wanted to knit himself into with a few sentences and a curious gaze that answered the same curiosity Frank made practiced work on hiding as well as he could—and definitely failing in the process when he thinks back to the smiles they exchanged at the end despite Kraushaar’s annoying presence.

The burning locates and settles itself down somewhere low in his stomach when he watches the casual reign of Von Reinhartz’s words and orders wash over the conn, the rest of the men there to witness letting their eyes wander back and forth from him to the captain and occasionally back to Kraushaar. And even when the captain raises his voice in one of those rare displays of pulling rank he finds himself mesmerised, finds himself drawn to the imposing figure the man strikes, the ease with which he lets himself hover over the rest of the small space as if demanding for someone to talk back at him. Frank has the feeling that it wouldn’t go so well for any of them than it did for him in the past weeks. And something about this, something about knowing how true it is, makes him already long for the silence of the night where he won’t dream much but will let himself wallow in the whims of sleeplessness while he will think back to this moment — of the two of them existing in a room full of people and knowing something they don’t, seeing something they don’t, being something they aren’t. It’s the closest he knows he will probably get to experiencing the real thing, but it helps to quieten the whistling in his ears to only a dull hum until he will see Von Reinhartz the next day again, helps to kill some of the restlessness in him when he falls into an exhausted and dreamless sleep.

He is so good at being quiet, at going through people unseen, that whenever his captain notices him and singles him out it feels like being branded over and over again, marked anew by a fire he can’t put out, opened up by a knife and hands he can’t pull away from. Ice cold eyes dissect him with their unrelenting force and all he can do is answer, is stare back, is dream of them and wish for them to never look away from him again.

When he finds himself out on deck a few days later to see his captain strip off after the short moment they had not even an hour before, Frank learns that all the restlessness he felt the past weeks is nothing to the undeniable yearn overwhelming him then. He dreamed of scars and calloused hands every night, now he knows he won’t get the washed-out blue of tattoos, the endless expanse of pale skin, and the rough boom of Von Reinhartz’ voice out of his head till they reach the shoreline.

Jumping into the water seemed like the easiest thing to do when his captain beckoned them all. Of course he had to be the first. He could reason with himself that it nearly made the whole aftermath of that day worth it and he is scared of what that means for him. And for his captain.

iv.

It is quite the thing, how his expanding need for the captain turns into something as steady as he is, something as concrete as he is. How potent the simmer of devotion — because this is what this is, a devotion Frank has never felt before and he knows he will never feel again — that has sprung from the root of his desire could be when put to the test. He is given a gun and he only looks at it for a moment before he takes it,turns it over in his hands, and when Von Reinhartz only tells him to use it when he thinks he needs to Frank knows that _he_ knows that Frank will use it, that while the older man would do anything to end the war and so would Frank, he would also do anything for the captain. They look at each other and it is all there, as his darker eyes meet those light and inquiring eyes, that speak to him without having to say anything more anymore.

Time is elusive on and beneath the water, that is the universal rule they all had to adapt to and learned through the fire and brimstone of their last time out here, and that only aids to the notion that he and the captain have grown together into an indestructible union preceding the ones before on sea. He has heard the heroic stories of some of the crews, of particular seaman on their own (and the memory of Tennstedt’s sacrifice does not lie too far from it), but this feels different, this feels like so much more than those men being heroes. This feels — it feels personal, and it feels intimate in the undeniable tension building between them with every look and unspoken work, and it feels like the biggest thing Frank has ever gotten himself in. He has been part of the resistance, he has tried to run away, and somehow this is the one thing that seems to defy all of it. This is the one story he will always tell, the one about captain Johannes Von Reinhartz.

A man like a wolf, a voice like a record Frank wants to rewind over and over again, and a presence like coordinates unforgettable in Frank’s mind at every hour of every day. His life has turned to the point of revolving around the captain and now he can’t go back, can’t find his way back, can’t find a reason to be anywhere else but with him. The truths he discovers about himself on this journey are maybe as uncomfortable as the guilt they press into corners of his mind that nearly make him forget about it, and yet he walks so deep into the waters the older man wades into first that he finds himself stuck in the mud, stuck in the unfurling ocean in front of him, stuck in the presence of this man that is more force than human, that seems more and more like an invention of his mind due to cabin fever and shell shock than a real-life human.

Frank knows he’s real, knows it because he has heard that commanding voice speak to other people than him, knows it because their LI always tries another joke and another story on Von Reinhartz like he tried with Hoffmann and Tennstedt and Wrangel before him but with far better results, knows it because he can’t ever look at anything or anyone else when he's in view, knows it because he pushed hushed messages over to him through the bulls-eye separating him from the men in the conn when they were under fire and when they weren’t too, knows it because the heavy weight of his hand on Frank’s shoulder or neck is so devastating in how it anchors him and yet leaves no marks but memories, knows it because the warmth of his body so close to Frank's whenever the two of them occupy the small space of the radio room he can’t concentrate of anything else but this, but the heavy smell of sweat and sea and oil that makes him so willing to throw every custom and carefulness out of the wind to open his heart and his jugular for the other to bite into.

Run with the wolves, _the grey ones_ , and yet here he is following the one not belonging to their kind. Run with he wolf, yes indeed. Yes, he wants.

He finds he hardly wants anything as much these days, or more. Except maybe for finding his daughter again, except for maybe finding a way off this ship. But even those ideas feel tasteless when they don’t include the other man, even those ideas feel pointless without the other man being by his side.

Again, he is quite aware of the holes he shovels for himself to fall into, and how he falls into all of them.

Before his captain can move away, Frank reaches out one of his hands and puts it on the sleeve of the his brown jacket, fingers curling into the heavy and unrelenting material there, making the older man stop where he is in the doorway to the little workspace Frank usually occupies on his own but does less so these days. 

“Frank?” He asks, a question in his tone Frank can detect with ease these days, and Frank drops his gaze to his own hand on the jacket, so close to touching him without even touching him. Head rush, heat rush, it’s all the same to him right now, it all happens at the same time.

Frank swallows the rough dryness out of his mouth, clears his throat for good measure before he looks back up into Von Reinhartz’s impossible eyes. Everything about this, about this man is impossible, and yet here he stands in front of Frank. And yet here they are, Frank can feel the heat of his body from this close even from where he sits.

“You told me- ” Frank begins but stops, looks down again as he searches for the right words to say. What does he want to say? _You told me you’d look after me, that you’d take care of me. You promised Gluck. You promised me. Please promise me. Look after me, take care of me. Protect me. Do with me whatever you want to do with me. I’d let you._

None of these things could ever be vocalised with other people around, without knowing that he could say them without fearing the disciplinary actions he has been expecting for weeks now (and certainly not the one he wants), without the numbing fear of being sent to jail once they hit land or, worse, being executed for this. He doesn’t understand himself — or what he feels for the other man — either, but it is there and it is not going away and it grows with every passing day, hour, minute, second. And this devotion, it eats him raw, it eats so many holes into him that he can’t fill with words or music or work or his loneliness.

He spirals, he can _feel_ himself beginning to spiral with nothing but the presence and scent of the older man surrounding him, and he can’t look up again as his gaze focuses on the dark material of Von Reinhartz’ trousers, the way they are at least a bit too big by the knee as all the custom uniforms are, and the heavy wool of the material clinging to his thighs. It’s something he notes down in his mind like another code he needs to decrypt, another message he needs to pay attention too and not an obsessive tendency for reassurance that he finds when he looks at just any part of the other man, he finds when they are this close. It’s easy, it’s simple, it’s the worst thing he’s done what with how his eyes can’t move away and he is fairly sure his captain knows it, one of the things Frank can definitely be sure of because his captain notices everything, and yet he clings to this ease, to the simpleness of desire and devotion.

A hand comes to rest on the back of his neck where he has dropped his head downwards, a weight and shape he recognises immediately and would recognise even deaf or blind or beaten close to unconsciousness, and the moment his mind knows his eyes widen, but he can’t look up, doesn’t look up for fear the hand would retract itself again. The older man is wearing gloves, of course he does, and yet Frank can feel the heat of his palm and the full expanse of it around the back of his head vividly, thoroughly, exhilaratingly. Exhilarating — he wants, he wants, he wants. He wants to sink into this feeling and never let go of it.

“Frank,” the other man repeats himself and Frank can’t help but move into the grasp, only look up for a short moment, a fraction of lifting his head, but the look he gets back does not only make his blood simmer or boil but positively sets it alight. He finds fire in this cold, he finds there the burning that has sat beneath his own skin for weeks now, and he holds his breath when fingers wind into his hair, holds his breath when he gets pulled in and his forehead collides with his captain’s torso, skin against the rough and weather-beaten fabric there.

This is not a dream, he tells himself, _not a dream_ , and he would pinch himself or slap himself to make sure of it, but the only thing he can do right now is grind his teeth together with so much force that he knows his jaw locks right where he bites back his desire and clings to his restraint, right where he tries to be _good, good, good_. As good as he was these past few weeks, as good as he was before the war, as good as he was when he was someone else but a man broken down solely to the radio unit he worked with every day. He can be good, he knows he can be.

“Frank.” One more time, his own name sounding like gospel or like an unknown language to him, or like music, and he can’t stop the heavy exhale that rushes past his teeth low and high like a faint whistle. Averting his gaze is easier like this, when he couldn’t look up anyway, and he solely focuses on the two of them being here, the two of them being in this moment that seems to have no end and no beginning either because it has begun weeks ago, and he focuses on his breath as shallow as it is hitting the edge of his captain’s jacket and the fingers in his hair that wind themselves into the dirty strands and just have a hold on them that alone makes it uncomfortable to sit for Frank, that makes him want to get up from this damned chair and at the same time wants him to stay right here with the older man’s body enveloping him and keeping him tethered.

He wants to be anchored, he wants to stay still in the safety he feels, he wants the two of them together.

The captain must feel him go slack against his body because his hand now runs soothingly through Frank’s hair and down to the strip of skin not under the collar of his uniform anymore, sending shivers downwards like electricity teetering down the nobs of his spine, and it is the closest Frank has ever come to relieving the sure touch of his dreams by daylight with the object of his dreams bestowing the ministrations to him as well. It feels unreal and yet it is the most grounding experience he has had ever since leaving La Rochelle for the first time with Hoffmann and his crew, and he closes his eyes again. His hand is still on Von Reinhartz’s sleeve and he shakes it loose for fear of letting his arm go numb and instead puts his palm flat against his captain’s abdomen right next to where his own forehead rests, can feel the ripple of muscle he knows to be there even through the layers of clothing as the unrelenting solidness he has begun to associate with the other’s body.

Fever dreams, pipe dreams, reality — suddenly they are all the same.

“Frank.” Von Reinhartz’ voice is a quiet hush, never finding a reason to raise his voice when he doesn’t explicably feels the need to, and Frank nods before he can say more just like he did on their first day. “Frank, if you think you need to, don’t hesitate to use the gun. Okay?”

Frank nods again, surer this time, and he can swear he can feel the captain smile without even seeing it. But he does get a chance to, the smile so open and unguarded when the older man’s other hand comes to his chin and lifts it up with a finger under it in the small space between them so Frank can see his face. It’s like time stretches between them in this moment, even more elusive than it has ever been, and the moment feels endless as Frank tries to keep himself seated, not to fling himself at the other man to bring back the grounding force of his touch from seconds ago.

“Good.”

When the captain leaves, he takes all the air out of the room with him. Frank is frighteningly sure he would kill for him just as much as he would die for him.

v.

The adrenaline still runs through him and numbs him from the worst of the shock, but the images can’t be erased out of his head, the moment replaying in a sick loop constantly as he tries to calm down. There’s the knife against his throat and then there’s the color of the Atlantic Ocean answering him when he looks up from the arm around his neck to settle on something, anything, to make this surreal moment less surreal. Von Reinhartz turns to look at him with a knife against his own throat and it lasts for a long, for another endless moment, before everything moves in breakneck speed and he sees the gun facing him before the one SS man that has had threatened him moments ago falls to the floor. They were looking right at each other as it happened, he and Von Reinhartz, and Frank can’t forget how the man didn’t blink when he shot the guy threatening to kill Frank.

He didn’t blink, he didn’t even _move_ from where he stood, and he didn’t miss either. And he didn’t look away until he could get a hold of Friedl and tell him to be quiet. And Frank couldn’t look away from him at all either, couldn’t tear his gaze away as the shock settled into his bones with the ringing in his ears due to the gun shot, unable to feel or think anything beyond the fact that his captain just killed someone for him— protected him.

That had hit him so hard that he can only remember stumbling back to the front of the ship on unsteady feet, can only remember sitting down because he needed to sit down, because he needed to move or else he would have thrown up on the floor right where he stood. He didn’t know what to do besides looking at his captain and then looking away to hide the tears that were overwhelming him when they looked at each other, when he knew they were speaking the same language but meant two different things, also knowing that the other man was watching him when he wiped the tears from his face and went back to work.

(There is only one thing that lies itself over the quiet repetition of that moment in the torpedo room and it’s Von Reinhartz’ words from weeks ago: _I’m supposed to look after you_. Frank couldn’t know back then what that would mean.)

An hour or so later he has switched to his usual chair, still Oberfunkmaat and now the only one left, but instead of listening for any new messages that couldn’t come through anyway he stares at the place the captain is sitting in ever since sitting down there after killing a man for him. Frank knows they don’t have much time before Wrangel would come at them again, but even that thought is so far from his mind that he can’t even worry about the prospect, too worked up over the past events of the day that he couldn’t make his mind worry over anything else if he tried.

He can’t seem to get over the same thing, can’t let his thoughts wander past the fact that the man killed for him, the man he has been dreaming and wishing about had killed for him, the man sitting only a few feet away from him has saved his life and killed for him. It’s hard to process anything else when this has been the most disturbing and the most moving thing that has happened to him in his life. He has felt so sure of his own endless devotion for the past days now but he hasn’t really expected or thought that the other man would return it in even a fraction of a measure or equally or even more so. Frank hasn’t wanted to think about it because he didn’t want to face the let down of what he expected to find, but it turns out that what he found has been the polar opposite of what rejection he conjured up in his mind. As rightful as that was of him, he seems to have been wrong.

It is second nature now, looking at the other man, he is never not able not to look at the other man when he is in eyesight, and he doesn’t waver when the haunting but pensive eyes of the captain look back at him. Always so attentive, always so intent; those are qualities that Frank can’t seem to shake off of him, can’t seem to not be pulled in by. He resents himself a little for it, thinks he knows now how Tennstedt must have felt during his last mission, but he also knows that this is more. It it still more, it is something he could still attest to being bigger than anything he has seen between two other people, between anyone.

They have saved each other’s lives now, the score is settled. And yet nothing feels settled. On the contrary, Frank has never felt more unsettled when looking at the other man. He thinks back to their moment before the attempted mutiny a few days ago and if he would have to pinpoint the one time something shifted between them, when the thing between them went from an unspoken unity to this dangerous devotion, then it would have been this — A hand clad in leather against the back of his head and holding him still in tender assurance while he breathed warm into the space between them, a voice saying his name and his own head nodding in accordance. Devotion, devotion, devotion. Every congregation would fall over themselves in envy of his.

“What is it?” The captain speaks up into the strained silence between them and Frank’s eyes move form their unfocused look to something sharper, taking the other man in with a rapid attention he only ever accorded tochecking the streets of La Rochelle during his work in this resistance or when he looked out for himself while stuck on a boat with Tennstedt and Hoffmann and Grennwood to boot.

He is careful, he is pragmatic, he is realistic. He always is, knows how to look after himself. But he thinks he’s done enough looking. He thinks he has seen enough of this war and of the men it shapes simple sailors into and the things it takes away from everyone it doesn’t seem righteous, doesn’t want to exist. He has seen it all and he has taken his own fair share of collateral damage through those years and he has been prey and then hunter and then prey again, a never-ending circle he doesn’t want to see anymore. He has seen no heroes and instead has seen so much failure and so many humans. He can’t anymore, his ledger can’t take more entries that would promise him more debt.

He can’t go on this way and he can’t restrain himself anymore.

His gaze doesn’t waver now, attention a mirror to the one has has found himself pinned down under ever since stepping foot onto this boat, and he finds his own resource of intentions as he gets up from his seat quietly to cross the small space between his desk and the bunk the captain is sitting on, only looking around once to make sure that the doors are closed to the other rooms and the few left of the crew in the conn are too busy making sure Wrangel isn’t bombing them by surprise. The quiet is a little eery as he moves closer to the captain, his feet not as unsteady as they have been before, and he only hesitates for a short moment when he’s close enough that he has to look down and the older man has to look up — a role reversal that sends the hum of a thrill down Frank’s spine — and neither of them is saying anything.

Neither of them is saying anything when he places one hand on the leather upholstery Von Reinhartz is sitting on and puts a knee on it too, neither of them is saying anything when Frank moves in between the captain’s legs, neither of them is saying anything when they are so close that their noses are nearly brushing and Frank has to drop his own gaze to meet the light ice of the other man’s, and no one is saying anything when Frank reaches up his hand to place it against his captain’s cheek, so much less tentative than he has ever been. Neither of them is saying anything either when a naked hand places itself against Frank’s back, when he can feel the burn the touch invokes right in his stomach, when the liquid in his veins turns to something that could ignite any second now. And when one of them finally says something it is Von Reinhartz, his voice a whisper that Frank can feel against his face when he asks, “May I?”

Neither of them has to clarify what he is asking, so Frank only nods as he always did in the past to any inquiry the man before him has had, and then he can feel the mere brush of lips against his own before the hand on his back digs into the material of his uniform and pulls him closer. Their lips collide in a kiss Frank hasn’t felt or tasted in ages, or ever, and he closes his eyes only a split second after he knows Von Reinhartz has closed his, letting himself fall into this moment once and for all, let himself fall for this man with no point of return in sight.

His own hand runs up to the back of his captain’s neck, curling around the heavy collar there and pulling him close and closer still, which would seem impossibly with how close they already are, but somehow it works. Somehow he finds a new angle to tilt his head and he can feel the other’s teeth against his bottom lip and he moans in response, pulls back for a second to take a shuddering breath before he dives back into this, before they kiss again and this time with more bite, with more heat, with all the possible burning in Frank's blood igniting and catching fire on this, in this, because of this. If he has felt like he has been opened up with hands and a knife before by this man’s singular presence, he now feels like he is opening himself up for ravishing as much as he is opening himself up for _home_ — another hand comes up to his back, slipping under his uniform jacket and burning more imprints into the shirt he is wearing underneath, and he gets pulled in with one stumbling step by the older man to put his other leg over his thighs.

It is — it’s better like this, more heat and more friction, and he lets himself sink onto the captain’s thighs with all the lack of restraint he has just found, with the same pragmatic air he used to decode messages and send those back, with the same determination he used to help a city that never wanted to welcome him. He’s in the wolf’s grasp now and takes the bite willingly, takes the danger it poses and the safety he can feel with his captain’s body moving up to collide with his, to leave no space between them and not even give air the idea to try anymore, and he kisses and kisses him again and again.

It lasts for hours, it last for minutes, it maybe lasts seconds, but when Frank pulls back to open his own jacket and then the captain’s one, he finds the man looking back at him with violently blue eyes, with new darkness to the cold shade Frank has usually found himself trapped in. With less constriction to their clothes he can already feel those large hands tuck his shirt out of his trousers and move under it, place naked palms on his heated skin, and Frank arches into the touch, finds the same grounding force in it as he did when one of those hands was on his neck and held him still. He knows he is being desperate, guilty of wanting for far too long and getting nothing in return, and he has to look away for a moment as he bites down hard on the place another pair of teeth have bitten into just moments ago.

He can feel Von Reinhartz’ exhale more than he hears it, cool against the damp skin of his neck, and can feel his nails dig into his lower back. It makes Frank so viciously proud, so evidently more desperate, and he has to hold his breath to will his own whimper down his throat again. It’s all too much and it could not suffice to be enough until they’re alone and have a bed — no, a whole room — for themselves and somehow the idea of New York burns itself into his mind as the only goal right now for that alone.

He wants. He wants this man and he wants to be with him beyond that. And he wants the safety of this moment to never end, and to never lose the focus of that adoring blue swallowing his every movement and every look, and he wants to have those wide shoulders move over him and cover him from the world forever, and he wants to have his dreams come true. And right now he wants nothing more but for them to stand still in time. Or to get out of this hell this unscathed.

“Frank,” his captain says with a heavy rasp to his voice, the baritone sounding wrecked in a way that doesn’t help Frank’s current condition,but he does look back at the other man again, finds the courage in this mayhem to do so. “Say my name.”

It is not a question, it doesn’t sound like one and Frank is certain even now he could detect an order from Von Reinhartz if his life depended on it, how inside and out he now has the man’s moods and enunciation catalogued. He feels himself respond similar to the gun shot, still in shock but this time with unyielding heat sitting in every part of him, every sinew and muscle and bone and vein filled with it, and he can’t help but open his mouth only for another rushed breath to escape than to actually say something.

The hands on his back pull him closer again to make up for his own created distance and they shock Frank awake.

“Say my name. Will you say my name?” His captain repeats himself and this time Frank reacts, this time he moves.

He leans forward to nuzzle the warm skin between the other’s collar and his jaw, his lips brushing against it as he says ever so quietly, more like a secret than an actual sound, “Johannes.” They are so close already but he feels like they have just become closer still, begun to grow into something entirely new with this action. The name sits in his mouth like a sermon, like a hymn, the same way his teeth have felt when he heard the captain say his own name. It is that rush again, the ringing in his ears now coming from something else than the echo of a gun shot in an enclosed space, but from something that feels entirely belonging to this moment and the rushing heart in his chest. Fingers wind themselves into his hair like they did a few days ago, holding him where he is though he does not need it, and Frank can’t help but smile when he says again, “Johannes.”

The grip tightens and Frank places a kiss against the usually so hidden skin, coarse hair of his captain’s beard scraping against the ridge of his nose, his scent of all the things Frank had already catalogued so strong here but this time combined with something that must belong entirely to Von Reinhartz — _Johannes_.

Frank realises he has never been so intimate with someone before, has never felt this close to someone before, as if he could crawl into the older man’s ribs and build a nest there to stay forever, and maybe the quiet hum of repressed words rumbling low beneath his ear says the same. He wants it to mean the same thing.

“I want you to always call me that when we are alone,” Von Reinhartz says then right against his ear, his breathe hot and his voice the same rumble as the one that Frank has heard in his throat moments ago, and Frank only nods. Says yes without having to say another word. They are promising each other without promising, they are opening themselves up for dissection without undressing, and Frank can feel it down to his toes and taste it in his mouth.

He’s burning again, he’s running hot all over, and wants to chase this forever, wants to never let this go. The safety of this moment could be disturbed any second and yet he knows the way he feels now will haunt him until death finds him, maybe beyond it, and if he will tell this story one day he knows what he won’t say and he knows it will ring truer for him this way. _This man killed for me_ , he thinks, _and he would do it again. This man killed for me and I would let him do it again._

“You promised me,” he says out loud instead, pressing the words into pale and weather-worn skin, muffled by the fabric of Johannes’ scarf. “You promised me you’d look after me. You’d take care of me.”

Johannes doesn’t miss a beat when he takes Frank’s face into both of his palms and looks at him with the same clear gaze, washed over with unclouded devotion that fills all the empty hearths Frank’s longing has left in him, and says, “I will. I am.”

And Frank believes him.

vi.

It must be late when Johannes finally wakes up. Every muscle of his body feels sore, feels numb with pain, and yet he is awake. He blinks a few time to focus his gaze, the room dim with only slivers of light coming in through some window, but still light enough to strain his eyes. The place is unfamiliar, but he could recognise a hospital by structure of a room and the smell in the air alone, having been in enough in his lifetime to figure that out despite the muddy state of his brain. Shifting his head from side to side, he can feel the strain down to his back by the simple movements alone, groaning in pain before he lets his head tilt back against the pillow again. He doesn’t know where he is and he only remembers jumping into the water and swimming, trying to swim to the coast, and then that breathtaking pain in his back before darkness came to swallow him before the ocean could.

He wants to move onto his side but he thinks that is a very, _very_ bad idea, and most of his recent ideas have been bad enough if they landed him in a hospital, if they make him feel so much pain, if they killed his wife. The memory is still so present, still so new, and despite what happened on water he can still feel the hollow echo of her absence sit right in the space behind his ribs to probably last there forever, to probably haunt him there for his own failures forever, to not release him from the pain even if he makes it out of this room. His wife has been a particularly persisting woman up until he broke her heart and he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d persist in haunting him too. She seems to nearly have helped in him getting himself killed for a second time, so who’s to say what is still in the cards for him?

Ghosts and their painful presence, and their endless hunger — yeah, he has made friends with those. And only ever one thing seemed to have managed to pull him out from under the pressing weight. The second memory that comes to him, that picture of dark hair swooping into a young face and a clever mouth twisting into a warm smile, placing marks on him from away and then from up close, from not close enough.

He closes his eyes for a moment and tries to remove the image of Frank out of his mind through sheer force of will alone, but it doesn’t seem to work, only elicits the memory of his mouth against Johannes’ own and his tear-stained cheeks hours before on that day when he couldn’t even look Johannes in the eyes anymore for what he did.

Endless hunger. Endless, endless, endless. Maybe this is the final judgement cast onto him by the world for being such a coward — to wake up in a place he doesn’t know all alone and in pain with nothing but memories that hurt him even more to haunt him. Could be fitting. He’s fairly sure Wrangel would be delighted to know that.

He groans again then, his side aching now more insistingly than when he woke up, and maybe he has been lough enough or maybe it’s just timing, but the door to his room opens and a nurse looks around the dimly lit room before she finds his eyes and lets out a startled breath at finding them already looking at her before she seemingly kicks into notions of her training and leaves the room again. It’s not long until a doctor comes in followed by the same nurse and behind them another person not dressed in hospital whites. It takes Johannes a few seconds until he recognises the person and he can feel himself melt into the mattress when he finds Frank following the two other people and closing the door softly behind him.

They look at each other for a quiet moment while the doctor and the nurse look over Johannes’ medical chart, and the hint of a relieved smile eases something in Johannes’ chest at the sight, knowing that the haunting memories might not have to haunt him anymore — or for him to do the same in return if the bloodshot eyes and dark circles under them in Frank’s unshaven face are anything to go by.

The moment breaks only when Johannes has to avert his gaze, the first time ever he has to look away first between the two of them, and Frank walks up to the doctor and the nurse and they talk quietly for a moment before the doctor turns to Johannes and tells him he is going to check in on his cognitive reflexes and also the healing of the bullet wound he sustained— not a memory that Wrangel didn’t miss him then either — and proceeds to do exactly that in an agonisingly slow tempo that Johannes could swear just makes the wound hurt more and his mind even more muddled, but he lies dutifully through all of it, answering questions that he understands or having Frank help translate them when it takes his mind too long to do it, listening to what the doctor is saying to him once his wound is redressed and he can lie down again, promised bedrest and all that.

It must take up to an hour, maybe more, but finally the doctor wishes him a relaxed evening and not to leave the bed unless he absolutely must, and the nurse tells him to just send Frank to the nurse’s station if he needs another dose of morphine. Once the door finally closes and they are alone it doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Frank takes the chair by the window and moves it up to Johannes’ bed, pulling his knees up and on it as he watches him, those dark eyes unreadable and heart-breaking as they can’t seem to look away from him.

Johannes clears his throat, the rough sensation of not having talked in what have been three days sitting heavy against his vocal chords, but he pulls the words from his chest and pushes them past his teeth anyway, turns his head despite the pain to look at Frank too while he does so. “You didn’t listen to me.”

Frank looks at him for a moment before his eyes widen and he drops his head, appearing so much shier than Johannes knows he actually is, and it tears more and more into his heart that this must be his fault. It twists painfully in his chest, right where the words he just said came from, and he wants to reach out and do something to soothe this visible worry in Frank that bleeds through his posture and his silence, but he can’t. He can’t. He knows he has to leave this up to Frank.

“Your name is _John Reinhardt_ and you got shot during an altercation down by the beach — it, it was an accident, you were surprised by some rowdy guy, more or less. The other guy couldn’t be found but I found you before the waves could drag you out into the ocean. That’s why we were soaked when we made it to the hospital, I pulled you out of the water myself. Your wife had recently died. I was her, well, I was her brother and because you didn’t have any children or family left that makes me your next of kin. We’re Germans who moved to America to flee the war four years ago and have been travelling back home after your wife’s funeral and that's when you got hurt. Your papers must have been stolen and mine are with my daughter in Europe who had been staying with her mother when the war started.”

Frank’s voice is quite but steady, nearly no insight into what is going on inside of him as he sees Johannes in the hospital bed, recounting the cover story he’s made up for themselves with such ease that he must have told it to everyone in this hospital and then some ever since they made it to shore. Must be convincing in his delivery too when no one’s asked him about it more or questioned the legitimacy of it.

Well, Johannes will be the last one to question it.

“And?” He asks instead and finally makes Frank look at him again, those bruised eyes finally answering his own and they look at each other for a long moment that seems to move something inside of Frank enough to uncurl his posture and set his feet down on the floor again, turn his chair so his knees hit the hospital bed and he can reach out to carefully take Johannes’ hand that lies on the duvet.

Johannes notices it only then, that his wedding band is missing. He looks at both of his hands and finds them empty of any ring, but when he drifts his gaze over the one covering his he sees the ring on Frank’s finger. Looking back up with something he can’t quite name caught in his throat, Frank only shrugs in return. “They cut off all your clothing and removed all your belongings. I threw it all away but thought holding on to this might not be the worst idea,” he explains, gaze shifting again to avert Johannes’ own eyes that can’t seem to look at anything else but Frank’s face shrouded in the soft light of dawn, half of him already in shadow. The warm light makes him skin less pale, makes him look less fragile than he did when he came in, and Johannes hopes that Frank will return to the resemblance of the mouthy and brave man he fell in love with in the Atlantic now that they both have hit American soil and are alive. It’s honestly all he can think about that he wants.

“And it helped sell the story, you know. People ask less questions why another man is trailing one when he has a wedding band for show and talks about his daughter. It reassures people, it — it kept me safe. It kept us safe. From worse questions or from being turned away from the hospital,” Frank adds then, his palm warm and dry where is rests over the back of Johannes’ hand.

It all seems unreal, first meeting Frank and then the two of them still making it out of that damned boat even with their plan going so haywire that neither of them could know for sure if they’d ever make it out alive. But they did, they actually did. Johannes turns his hand around under Frank’s and weaves his fingers through the younger man’s, squeezing his hand ,ore weakly than he’d ever do before this whole ordeal but squeezing his hand nonetheless, knowing the reassurance is something they both need.

“You’re ridiculous. You’re marvellous, You’re so good, ” Johannes says, a little breathless and voice full of wonder, the hint of a smile settling on his face despite the effort it takes when he sees the faint traces of a blush creeping up Frank’s neck at the words. “You didn’t listen to me and you saved us both.”

Frank looks bashful, signalling again that it might take a while until he will return to true form again just like it will take a while for Johannes to heal, but they are together. They actually are together. And they’ve got time now. He thinks that neither of them is too eager to ever return to Germany, not until the war’s ended anyway, or to blow the cover Frank has constructed for them to even have the chance to stay here. And whatever they’d have to do after he gets released, he has the inkling they’ll figure it out — _together_. How good that word sounds.

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me,” Johannes concludes, putting enough weight into the words to make sure Frank knows how serious he is. He has never been more glad for an act of insubordination and he knows he won’t ever be again, not with their lives finally cut loose from the war.

Frank returns his statement with a smile, looking at him so earnestly and with so much adoration in his gaze that Johannes feels like he could drown under that gaze, like he could willingly swim out into that look and let luck and chance take care of the rest. What was it that he said on New Year’s? He could count himself lucky Frank was on duty and no other operator and he could never have imagined how true those words would ring some time later. How lucky he actually was right up to the end.

His hand gets lifted from the mattress by the one wearing his wedding ring and he can’t help but smile wider in return when Frank presses his lips hastily against the back of his hand, watching the loving affection with tired but awake eyes.

“I’m glad I didn’t listen to you either,” Frank agrees, the slight uptick in his voice eliciting something close to a laugh out of Johannes if he wouldn’t wait for the morphine to finally hit again and take him under. If he’d be more healed, but he knows that Frank can see it right there on his face if the way he softens even more is any indication. “And Johannes?”

Johannes tilts his head to the side and waits for Frank to say what he wants to say, the solid weight of their joined hands on the duvet and his own wedding band against Frank’s skin the one thing that feels easiest to focus on, that instills such quiet content in him that he can’t help but close his eyes for a moment to center himself, to remind himself that he’s made it — they’ve made it. He only opens his eyes when Frank speaks again, the words etching into his heart as if needle and thread pulled through the muscle.

“Thank you for looking after me,” Frank says and Johannes nods, can only nod, the warmth of Frank’s hand and the fierceness of his gaze tethering him to this new reality. To a reality he thinks he prefers to the one they were in before. 

Because they have this now. And from now on they will look after each other.

**Author's Note:**

> consent is important, always. be gay and defeat some n*zis - those are the real das boot lessons of 2020, my friends, and the rest doesn't need to make any sense. 
> 
> hit me up to dissect the intricate gay rituals shown in das boot (2018-) or other obscure german media or, idk, just leave a comment if you want! I love to chat and I don't bite and I'd love to talk about this show!
> 
> friendly reminder: you are loved, you are enough and you will achieve great things. you are right just the way you are, a living and breathing thing. keep going. even when times are tough right now and the world seems a lot, feel your feelings and take one step after the other.


End file.
